How To Be a Poet, a poem … and your next Wednesday Writing Prompt

Make a place to sit down.Sit down. Be quiet.You must depend uponaffection, reading knowledge,skill – more of eachthan you have – inspiration,work, growing older, patience,for patience joins timeto eternity . . .Excerpt from How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry, Given: Poems

The poem stands somewhere
between your heart and mind,
Waiting to capture, to study
Nature in all its complexity,
The shock of the corpse that
Once was your mother
The sea that embraces you
The pain that drowns you
Floating on silence, words white
And black, pure and tarnished
Like Iustitia, you are moral force,
Not blind but tongueless, let the
Keyboard be your mouth, let fingers
Dance in sacred space, the words
That arise are your sword, your
mirror and your snake . . .

……….rest in this
this place, this quiet, this haven,
this heaven of cup runneth over,
nurturing your own true voice

Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them. All poems on theme are published on the first Tuesday following the current Wednesday Writing Prompt. (Please no oddly laid-out poems.)

No poems submitted through email or Facebook will be published.

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.

Deadline: Monday, June 10 by 8 pm Pacific Daylight Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check ​The Time Zone Converter.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

A homebound writer, poet, and former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, an info hub for poets and writers and am the founding/managing editor of The BeZine.

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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is to leave behind the thronging
crowds and head towards the empty
shore; sleep beneath the stars, catch
your breath as the sky fills with light,
walk slow below the cry of birds,
turn your face to the stinging rain,
inhale the scent of kelp and salt;
imagine your past as dreck, pebbles,
flotsam, jewels, petals, all
spread out for you to comb
before you plunge wordsticks in the sand,
watch what the tides take away
and what they leave; fashion
from what you find a song
to take back to the thronging crowds.

How could I not be moved
and try to make sense
of the war in Vietnam?
My best friend felt the same
but when I showed her my poem
she raged. I’d gone too far,
I’d dared to write as though
I was a teenage G.I.in Laos.
What did I know?
What had I ever suffered
compared with the stench
of a battlefield?

Our friendship faltered.
We stopped connecting
even as I remembered
I’d inhabited that world,
lay flat on my belly
and wormed through
damp undergrowth,
rifle on my shoulder.
Fear clung to me like sweat.
I waited to obey orders
and wondered why I was there.

It became my history,
my tragedy, my time.

There’s always a life
that runs alongside mine
and a place
where the two paths meet.

I write this path:
step into army boots
or the skin and bone
of bare feet on broken glass.

On— How To Be A Poet
See first in vision the falcon’s high view
invoke Calliope Erato Polyhymnia Thalia
acquaint thyself with the epic classics
sacrifice a black goat’s head to Writing God Thoth
grab a writing palette and an ink jar,like his
a copy of his book ‘Book of the Dead
arm thyself with powerful weapons,pens
pencils, quills ball pens tablets modern-
dig into a dungeon invisible,
in utter dark solitude,brood,for immeasurable
moments,be oblivious of waste and wild,think not
of companions beloveds partners-
be far removed,in fact farthest is best-begin
commence the quest- idea must be supreme
like the Idea of Order of Key West
remember,know,that you have a song to sing
first sing to self if by the sea then a water melody
It must be on chords of ‘dashing water’ and moaning wind’
you are now on the spiritual plain,
in the happy realm of the creative domain,leave aside
the sense of injured merit, maintain with steadfast love
outward lustre,transform the alphabet into shapes beautiful
match it with the idea and there -you have what is called – a poem
and you will be -who is known as – a poet

we seek a synonym
to sanctify a noun
to agitate an adverb
to verbiage a mime
All equally compelling
Just short of being crime.
Then we sensually sanctify
The confessions of the mind
A poet you say?
Oh, the menacing muse
leading to confuse.
I would give half thrice and twenty
Even more if you please
To subjugate a wiser muse
who added to my purse
to reimburse my verse.

This poem is
a rope block heaved to its full extent.
Full up, no room for any more.
When the two blocks
of this poem’s tackle meet
it will prevent any more
purchase being gained
Keep cargo from a shift
in the dark hold

This poem is
a rope yarn mat used to fasten
upon outside of exposed parts
of standing rigging exposed
to friction of yards, bolt-ropes of sails,
or other ropes.

This poem splices rope
twists words wrapped
into sentences that strengthen
when tautened by meaning.

This poem is
a rope block heaved to its full extent.
Full up, no room for any more.
When the two blocks
of this poem’s tackle meet
it will prevent any more
purchase being gained
Keep cargo from a shift
in the dark hold

This poem is
a rope yarn mat used to fasten
upon outside of exposed parts
of standing rigging exposed
to friction of yards, bolt-ropes of sails,
or other ropes.

This poem splices rope
twists words wrapped
into sentences that strengthen
when tautened by meaning.

That’s all, Jamie. I promise. I know I’ve written far too many poems about poets and poetry. They say it’s a sin for poets to write about poetry. Poets should write about everything else in the world besides the subject of poetry. What they really think about writing poetry will be reflected in the poems they write. I loved the Wendell Berry poem you quoted above (as I love all his poems).

First, gather the ingredients:
Two or three fresh ideas from your backyard
A sprig of dappled sun and shadow
A touch of time
A pinch of rhyme (not too much!)
Don’t forget the meter
A bissel of iambs will definitely do.

Preheat the drawer to a comfortably musty degree
Add in the ideas, one at a time,
Into an old but well-loved pot
Stirring slowly all the while,
Finely chop the sprig of sun and shadow
Sprinkle time over the chopped up sprig
Pour the rhyme and iambs sparingly.

Put it in the drawer, no need to heat or rush,
Take it out when the poem’s done
And it will serve at least
One starving poet.

“What Can a Poem Do?”
(Inspired by the poems of Linda Chown
Raanana, December 9, 2018)

What can a poem do? They ask
With their sideways snickersnacks.
Well, a poem can swoop down
From high above the clouds
With talons bared and ready
Almost touching ground, but not quite,
The image of prey in its dilatated pupils,
But a reader will say,
Take me whole,
Take me now.
This is what a poem can do, it says,
So put away your snickersnacks,
It’s not for you, my talons bare
But if, by chance, my talons pierce your heart,
To the ends of space and time
Your heart is carried,
But your heart must find its own way home.

One preacher opens church doors wide at night
To succor the homeless and the helpless
While another locks the doors against the thieves.
One imam speaks of love and peace
To anyone with an open heart
While another preaches death to infidels.
One soldier gives his food ration
To a hungry child
While another aims a joystick in the clouds.
One king honors poetry
And another hangs the poets.
Don’t look for truth in poetry
Though truth hides there
As certainly as souls hide in all things,
For everything a poet writes
Is true
somewhere
sometime
to someone.

I woke up this morning
Got out of bed
With an unexplained hankering
To write a poem today
So I slipped on my jeans
And looked for a poem to write
That hadn’t been written yet.
I looked in the cupboard and then in the fridge
But seemed we were fresh out.
I looked through the paper,
The stories and pictures,
Even the ads,
Page after page
For something between the lines
Or the silence before and after,
But nothing was found.
Honestly,
Don’t know why people read newspapers.
Daisy and I walked out
For her necessities
While I looked in the bushes and tree branches.
Sometimes I see something
Flashing the sunlight
Or reflecting the quick shadows of clouds
That let go a flood of memories
And old loves.
I used to go out looking for girls to love
But now I go out looking for poems.
I suppose that’s a kind of love too,
Sometimes a dalliance
But mostly unrequited.
Later I went to the gym
Where we torture our bodies
In hopes we’ll trim fat or grow muscles
And looked for a poem
Between the weights and the treadmills
But truth was the beautiful came beautiful
And left beautiful,
The strong came and left strong,
The rest of us stayed tired and tortured
With nary a poem to show for it.
After that,
I stopped at a coffee shop
My hand trembling a cup
I looked around at the other tables
But nobody was reading a dogeared book
Or writing a poem
Or looked up at me
As I looked away,
Though the tables were busy
With people reciting their well-rehearsed plaints.
No poems on the menu
For lovers of Buddha
So I went back home thinking
Maybe this is a poem.

Poems, like ghosts, won’t just come to you
Whenever you want.
They decide the time and place,
Whether to come at all.
They size you up and down
And sideways
Whether you’re worthy or not.
Oh, I’ve known people who’ve gone
Their whole lives without ever knowing one.
You can be pretty
You can be smart
You can pray to God almighty
But that doesn’t mean a poem
Will come to your house
And knock on your door.
When they do come though,
They come naked as the day
They were born
And they expect you to be that way too,
Stripped down to your very soul.

When a poet wakes up in the morn
He puts his pants on
One leg then another,
And when he buys his milk and wants to pay
He stands in line between
The woman with her screaming kids
And the foreign workers,
But when the poet looks up at clouds
Or the night-time constellations,
Orion’s scabbard or Cassiopeia’s tilted throne,
He sees encyclopedias never writ nor read
By the likes of you or me,
And when he loves,
It’s Trojan Paris
Who’s faced ten thousand ships
And went to war for naught but one.

The room was dark except for one dim bulb
Trembling its cone of light above her head
Balanced delicately upon her swanlike neck
While the poet sat in shadow scarcely visible
Scratching his quill inside a notebook.

What care I for your poems poet?
I must have launched a thousand of them
But never read a single one.
Who has time or inclination for such pinings
When one is busy with life’s sordidness?
What’s that you ask for? Do speak up!
Oh, you want me to remove my blouse?
You’re all alike. My skirts, my shoes, my undergarments?
Shall I go on? My soft white flesh,
My muscles and my skeleton, you’re all the same,
Pornographers of the soul you are.

When all that remained was silence
And his empty head
He closed the notebook and wondered
What had just passed through him
And when it’d come again.

The first time I saw her,
Her flowered dress hanging loosely
From her slender body,
Her boyish haircut belying her doll-like face,
Her dactyl fingers holding
The frail unfolded page she recited from
Trembling but heroic in her hexameter,
Lips touching the microphone in a whisper,
I knew she was a poem
And not a real person like me.
I saw her once again in a city park
With her small daughter
Who is also a poem,
A haiku full of frogs and butterflies,
Ponds with bridges and lanterns,
And crayon buddhas
Dancing in her dreams of childhood,
Tucked in by her mother’s watchful love
But not a real person like my child.
My mother was a poem
A southern antebellum belle,
Sitting on the floor,
Her generous skirts flowing out from her,
Her freeform youth and beckoning beauty
To all who admired her poetry,
The only language she could speak and sigh,
She knew to be a poem you had to die,
Not a real person like me.
Me, I don’t rhyme, I scarcely scan,
My iambs died from anapestilence,
I go to work and come back home,
I watch the news and worry some,
My wife and I go to movies when there’s a good one,
I walk my dog and deal with encroaching silence,
And this man in mirrored parody
Becomes increasingly estranged to me,
But it’s a life I’d feign give up.
Still and yet at times I wish
I were a poem too.

It’s been said by poets who should know
That it’s a sin to write a poem about a po-
Em, probably because it’s hard
To find a word that rhymes with poem
But, if I could, that sure would show ’em.
All of my life I’ve been thinking of poems,
From daybreak to nightfall, from five until three,
Why can’t they just once be thinking of me?
I may not be in possession of beauty but
I can rhyme truly in dactyl tetrameter,
Though most of my rhythm is sprung into free verse,
That’s no excuse, n’est-ce pas, for not thinking
Of me.

No one has ever written a poem about a poem unwritten
Of the many virtues of such a poem
The perfect meter of noambic nometer
The clarity and minimalism leave
Even haiku silent with envy.
The language of silence is universal
Requiring no translation.
It will be unread by billions!
It’s amazing that no one has thought of it,
No one and I.

Poems are like ghosts,
Not everyone can see them,
Floating behind the rocks and distant pines.
But when you finally do see one
Your eyes open wide
In wonder full of surprise
Like someone I knew once
Who is herself a ghost now.

They are so powerless,
They can’t even open a door by themselves
But must wait for someone real to walk through.

Poems can’t be forced,
They’re like a talking horse
That only speaks when
Others are not about.

Poems can’t be heard by everyone.
They are much like silence
And there’s no knob to turn the volume up
There’s just
Silence.

Poems have a sense in which they’re right
That can’t be understood by everyone
Within the bounds of normalcy
Like dreams and madness.

A few things I’ve learned about poetry:
Never write a poem about poetry,
And the more emotion you put into a poem
The less you get out of it,
And rhyme is less important than reason,
And a poem not read is as sad
As a poem not written.

Old world spirits must be overrunning this country;
How else to explain this poetry coming into my hand
After all these years.
Must be the autumn lights,
Same as childhood’s.

My mother was a poetess.
Father was a writer and a storyteller.
She wore a scarf.
Emily was the name she would have chosen for herself.
Her long autumnal hair, lifted by iambic breezes.
She wrote a book of poetry.
I never saw it.

Father had all the instincts.
She didn’t wear her motherhood so easily.
Father left school to be a father and a husband.

One day, Mother left home to be a poet.
One day, she left the country.
One day, she left the world.

A divine gift, a blessing in the discerning eye
in the receptive mind, an ability in the grey
matter , opening the unseen box , a theory
of participation, of creation, a revolution, an
evolution, a single color to a rainbow, opening
trapped emotions, releasing enslaved feelings
letting a catharsis emerge, a torrent of tears, a
burst of energy, a sudden sprouting of a seed,
an awaited blossoming of a bud, the fall of the
last leaf , an Oracle of Delphi, a prophecy, a
spell in the forest, an untreaded path, a road
not taken, a lashing wave, a light in a cave,
waning or waxing the moon, a constellation
in the Milky Way, a new world order, a new
planet in boundless blackness floating, A
destiny all known yet created in expressions
rhymed or un rhymed in lines and symbols
expressed manifesting new meanings, new
vistas opening to form overtures, notes musical
by a musician, painting by an artist , a poem
by a poet.

Music moves my soul to dance
or heave a sigh
or weep a tale perchance
or pedigree a poem,
or to, like Shakespeare,
rail and “beweep my outcast fate”
and “trouble deaf heav’n”
“wishing me like to one more
rich in hope.”
as I cry for lost love, or
perhaps a Beatle tells me to “Let it Be”
or McKuen’s part words and phrases,
I would rather Emily be, with luscious
integrity laying down the words
with solemnity, en class
To contemplate their symmetry
and pen the prose my soul can see.

A thin screen
finer than the spider’s web
an unseen transparency
a void, yet a space, appears
between thoughts and the spirit,
a vision seeking words, to take
shape and form,to manifest the
idea, a thought normal transformed
from nothing to something, from
the mind’s eye to world view, to
see the hidden, expose it with beauty
more than inherent in nature and by
doing so initiate a movement, bring
into the seventh moment, language that
lay latent, to form the symphony from chaos
that would fill the sails of the harbored ship
and set it off on a journey through undiscovered
oceans and uncharted seas- this would be
the force called poetry and one who arrives
at the still point would be called a poet’

My first response dear Jamie
A bloody poetry
****
When a dawn gives a blue bird its ears
I walk along the far away beach
The vast sea lullabying giant waves speaks with me in whisper
I listen all his untold stories
And a poetry evolves in my heart.

When a dusk gives a fallen leaf its heart
I walk towards those broken shanties
tingled by dull last sun rays
I listen there stories of hardship
And a bloody poetry awakes in my heart.
Kakali Das Ghosh

Thank you, Jamie for the sweet invitation. I’m not sure about my poem if it’s on the subject, because it’s a little specific.

Creative Writing

at the corner are walking
people?
that
has nothing to do
with the creative writing
with your manner
to transfer (slowly)
the cigarettes into a cigarette case
to understand
I’m one of the others?
yes
like a white mountain is
the woman by me
who
is falling asleep

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